Too much news
We need to clone ourselves – there’s so much going on today we can’t possibly cover it all. The official launch of the Yes Scotland campaign was better than we expected, with particularly good contributions from Tommy Brennan, Dennis Canavan and a showstopping closing speech from Brian Cox all highlighting the broad base of support for independence – Alex Salmond was the only SNP politician on show, taking up just a couple of minutes of the hour-long presentation.
Online Labour activists were particularly keen to vilify Cox, unleashing a deluge of bitter attacks which succeeded only in drawing attention to how desperately the party wants to silence the 20% or so of Labour voters who actually back independence.
In an attempt to spoil the media coverage, the nascent No campaign chose the eve of the launch to release a YouGov poll they’d commissioned, with a headline figure of 33% in favour of independence and 57% against. Curiously, though – and little reported by the media – the poll didn’t ask the actual question that’s likely to be on the ballot paper, choosing instead the comparatively tortuous “Do you agree Scotland should become a country independent of the rest of the UK?”
Creating such an obvious hostage to fortune is a clumsy and guileless piece of work – especially given the enormous public fuss the Unionists have made about the precise wording and the possibility of bias therein – but the anti-independence parties presumably knew the media could largely be relied on to focus solely on the numbers and not mention what the actual question was.
Our favourite thing today, though, was an extraordinary outburst from Labour MSP Kezia Dugdale, who apparently wants the word “Yes” itself to be outlawed in the years running up to the referendum. On first reading of the piece we thought it was just a complaint that a democratically-elected government was daring to actively pursue the policies it had been elected on, but in fact it’s even nuttier than that – the leaflet and website Dugdale is objecting to isn’t actually anything to do with independence at all, but merely promoting a positive, “can-do” approach to Scottish enterprise.
To Labour, of course, promoting jobs and the Scottish economy is simply despicable populist cheating on the part of the Scottish Government – worse still when, in the immortal words of George Foulkes, the SNP are doing it deliberately. As Labour cling ever more tightly to negativity, as Ms Dugdale herself says: expect more of this.
The wording of the question will undoubtedly sway some – that is why the SNP favour their own wording. Fair enough.
Are you at all surprised by the figures for people that voted SNP in last election that said they do not support Independence?
“In another damaging finding for the pro-independence movement, the poll also suggested that only 58% of people who voted for the SNP in last May’s landslide victory for Salmond would back independence in a snap referendum, while 28% of SNP voters opposed it.”
“TSB: the bank that likes to say yes.”
Or in Kezia’s world, “TSB: the bank that actively promotes the nationalist conspiracy, and how much of your precious tax monies are spent promoting this sick propaganda?”
“Are you at all surprised by the figures for people that voted SNP in last election that said they do not support Independence?”
Not at all, no – I’ve drawn attention to it here before. I’ve seen it reported as high as 40%.
I have found no film on the BBC, radio or TV, of the Launch. Have they really not shown it, or have I missed it?
And did people see the midday Politics show? I hope you will put it on your blog.
Andrew Neil interviewed one person who had been at the Launch. This was introduced by a package which consisted of “unanswered questions about Independence”, and left viewers with the impression that we are being asked to vote without knowing what we’re voting for.
After the interview the two studio guests were asked for their opinions – both anti-Independence. No pro-Independence views in sight.
It was appalling.
@Shirley:
I have not seen any myself – but judging by twitter – many were saying that STV had the best coverage.
Brian Cox was the best Hannibal Lecter by a mile as well. Didn’t catch everything he said, but yes, an excellent and fantastically eloquent proponent for the case of independence.
I’ve always enjoyed listening to him on Question Time as well. Did he not give Starkey a bit of a booting?
Denis Canavan was excellent on Good Morning Scotland this morning. I’ve always liked him – more so after he turned independent and didn’t have to worry about curbing what he had to say. Reminds me of the Labour old school who recognised the value of a Michael Foot in the political sphere.
Are they enough for the leap of faith to be made? I don’t thinkso. But the more media time Canavan gets, the better.
“I have not seen any myself – but judging by twitter – many were saying that STV had the best coverage. “
It was the best by a country mile. The BBC stayed at the launch for mere minutes before switching back to Leveson, and the YesScotland site was late starting and had dreadful muffled audio.
I don’t know how the BBC manage to be so awful at covering these things or why they insist on only showing a handful of minutes of any big event to you before spending hours talking about it in the studio instead. I’d rather see it for myself. They did the same with the big international press event too.
It’s almost as if they’re trying to undermine it…
They certainly have no concept of the enormity of these events. Scotland is changing, regardless of the result in 2014. Depending on how things pan out, BBC Scotland staff could find themselves out of a job. I certainly see no reason why we should continue to fund a public service broadcaster that utterly failed in its purpose before we became independent. It’s a complete dereliction of duty on their part.
If they don’t buck up their ideas a bit, then perhaps indy Scotland should start from scratch with a brand new public service broadcaster, populated by people who have some sort of idea how to run such an institution properly, rather than running it like a village community TV station.
Although we’d keep Isobel Fraser and Mark Daly on, obviously…